


(still I fall)

by silverstorms



Category: Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: (they're both grad students it's not a TA/student thing to be clear), Christmas Fluff, F/M, Fluff, Grad Student AU, Kaz doesn't know how to deal with his feelings lmao, Pining, Ugly Holiday Sweaters, this is uhhhhhhhhhhhh absolute nonsense! fluffy nonsense!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-11
Updated: 2017-12-11
Packaged: 2019-02-13 15:43:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12987234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silverstorms/pseuds/silverstorms
Summary: Inej, Kaz, and two very ugly Christmas sweaters.





	(still I fall)

**Author's Note:**

> hi my name is Lilly and I wrote this instead of uhhhhhhhhhh updating Oceans Between Me and You but sssshhhhhhh I hope you like it anyways?? Requested by anonymous on Tumblr (find me @iwillhaveyouwithoutarmor! prompt requests are open!) Title from The Louvre by Lorde OF COURSE. I've never really attempted Kaz/Inej before but I would die for them. I would also die for comments so like... go ahead and leave one *finger guns*
> 
> HAPPY HOLIDAYS FOLKS 
> 
> oh and if you like my content, want to feed my caffeine addiction, think I'm hella rad, etc., and want to leave me a tip, you can buy me a coffee: ko-fi.com/lillian

“Time,” Inej calls out, her clear voice ringing over the students’ heads. “Bring your essays to the front, please.”

Kaz stays in his seat while the students, sighing and muttering, scribble down their last sentences and get to their feet, shuffling their way towards the front of the classroom. Inej collects them all calmly, smiling at each student in a reassuring sort of way. When all the essays have been collected, she speaks up again. 

“Thank you for a wonderful class, everyone,” she says. She doesn’t look at Kaz, but he can see the hint of humor in her smile and knows she finds it funny that he’s part of the everyone she’s addressing. “Have a peaceful winter break. You deserve it.” 

She stays behind her desk as the students collect their things and file out, many of them wishing her a merry Christmas or complimenting her sweater on their way out. Kaz stays in his seat, ignoring the looks many of the students shoot his way, until the room is entirely empty save for him and Inej. 

Tucking the essays into a blue folder, she looks up at him. “Not the most fascinating class you’ve observed.”

Kaz shrugs. “My presence scares them into working harder.” All the poli-sci grad students are required to attend at least one of each other’s classes at some point during the semester, and, well, if he showed up to more than half of Inej’s, who’s keeping track? She’s an interesting teacher. Admittedly, she wasn’t teaching today, as the students were just writing their final in-class essay, but, well, Kaz had grading to do, and the classroom where Inej teachs was as good a place as any to get it done.

“I can intimidate my students without your help, thank you,” Inej tells him.

“I’m sure you can.” 

He tucks his papers into his bag and comes down to the front of the classroom. and Inej hops onto the edge of the desk, looking at him with something akin to disappointment. “You’re not wearing a sweater.”

It’s true, he’s not. But she is: a ridiculously ugly green knitted thing patterned with yellow reindeer sporting fire-engine-red noses. It’s too big for her, hanging far past the waist of her dark jeans, and she keeps pushing the sleeves back to free her hands. Between the sweater and the fact that she’s sitting on top of the desk like a rebellious ninth grader instead of a twenty-something grad student, she looks completely ridiculous. 

Completely, utterly ridiculous. 

Kaz can hardly take his eyes off of her. 

There’s a strand of loose hair escaping from her braid, and she tucks it behind her ear as she slides off of the desk. “Luckily, we predicted this.”

Kaz narrows his eyes at her, noting the we. “Don’t tell me you’re conspiring with Fahey and Zenik again.”

“It’s called friendship, Brekker,” she says, deliberately. Inej doesn’t call him by his last name. She calls him Kaz. He refuses to allow himself to feel stung as Inej ducks under her desk, and the hideous garment she emerges with provides a welcome distraction. 

“Tell me you’re not serious about this,” he says, disgusted. The sweater is, incredibly, even uglier than the one Inej is wearing-- bright purple, with a collection of rainbow-colored snowflakes scattered around a snowman knitted in an uncomfortable shade of green.

“We all agreed that the grad student Christmas party would be an ugly Christmas sweater party,” Inej says severely. “You ought to honor your commitments, Kaz.”

“I never intended to go to the grad student Christmas party,” says Kaz, “so I don’t believe I’m bound to follow the dress code.”

“Really,” says Inej. “Then why did you tell Rotty you needed to reschedule your study session? Surely watching an acquaintance hand out essays prompts to her students wasn’t important enough for you to clear your schedule for the whole afternoon. And since we’re the only people on campus you appear to tolerate, surely you must be planning to attend the grad student Christmas party and not some other social event?”

She’s outmaneuvered him. If Kaz was capable of being dumbstruck, he would be dumbstruck now. He’d always known Inej was just as smart as him, but he’d never imagined that she could be as manipulative. His options were now laid out neatly before him: either he admits that he’s been planning to come to the Christmas party all along and puts on the sweater, or he allows Inej-- or, more likely, Jesper and Nina-- to imply that Kaz Brekker skipped out on his appointments just to attend Inej Ghafa’s last class of the semester for absolutely no good reason. 

Or he comes up with a third option.

“Well,” he says, arching his eyebrows at her. “I am a mentor to the debate team, you know. I’m sure their holiday party will be absolutely thrilling.”

“Oh, I’m sure it will,” says Inej. “But will it be as thrilling as seeing Matthias Helvar in a sweater covered in little gingerbread people with heart eyes?”

“On second thought,” says Kaz. “I don’t think it could be.”

“That’s what I thought,” says Inej, and she tosses Kaz the sweater. 

He catches it with one hand and holds up the other. “I didn’t agree-”

“Oh, this isn’t a negotiation,” says Inej, still smiling at him. “Put on the sweater, Kaz.”

xXx

At the grad student Christmas party, Nina passes out drinks while Inej tells their friends that Kaz was going to attend the debate team holiday party, but changed his mind and decided to grace them all with his presence instead, and a grinning Wylan, the bravest among them, tells Kaz how much he loves his ugly Christmas sweater. 

“I’ll still kill you, Van Eck,” Kaz says, glaring at him, but Wylan only laughs and tucks himself into Jesper’s side, and Kaz doesn’t know whether to feel vaguely proud or vaguely disgusted that Wylan is no longer easily intimidated. 

Sometime later, when the party has dissolved into warm and blurry chaos, Jesper lying across Wylan’s lap on the piano bench while a laughing Wylan tries to play Christmas carols around him, Matthias blushing wildly when Nina corners him under the mistletoe for the third time, Inej finds Kaz standing by the window.

“Merry Christmas, Kaz,” she says, and when she rests her hand on his wrist, the long sleeve of the sweater falling over her palm prevents any skin-to-skin contact, but Kaz still feels as though someone’s frozen all the air in his lungs. 

Absolutely ridiculous. Completely, 100% absurd. 

He’d never admit it. But he’d also never have it any other way. 

“Merry Christmas, Inej.”

**Author's Note:**

> THANKS I HOPE YOU ENJOYED 
> 
> you can feed me with comments down below or with messages/prompts on Tumblr @iwillhaveyouwithoutarmor, or with COLD HARD CASH over yonder: ko-fi.com/lillian
> 
> thanks for reading!! I appreciate you!


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